Harshana Godamanna signals green light for this year’s Davis Cup

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Category: tennis

Published on Saturday, 26 March 2011 00:33

Written by Sankha de Livera Tennekoon

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Many Sri Lankan tennis followers would have been aware of Sri Lanka’s reigning national champion leaving the country a few months back for his higher studies.  The question in our minds for sure would have been “Is Sri Lanka Tennis at stake, as the current most experienced tennis player leaves?” The perception many had were that he might not play as it is impossible to make time with the Davis Cup fixtures and his university career as it would be clashing and to top it all many who left the country have not come back during their university stay to play adds to it.

The Sri Lankan Tennis Association has been able to persuade Harshana Godamanna in agreeing to play at this year’s Davis Cup. Harshana has represented Sri Lanka from his teens and; is one of the consistent Davis players along with Rajeev Rajapakse Sri Lanka posses.

Harshana who is currently based in the United States along with his universities studies is still playing his game. The Sri Lankan Davis Cup team which went through a rough and tough time in 2010 in the Asia/Oceania Zone group II  losing to New Zealand and Hong Kong on home soil; this year will be playing in the Asia/Oceania Zone group III which they have been demoted to.

The Davis Cup team has always been blessed, as this year too they have the home advantage as the venue to host Asia/Oceania Group III has been moved from Lebanon to Sri Lanka; since Lebanon is seen as unsafe to conduct the tournament by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) after holding talks with the other countries of the group. The Sri Lankan Pool comprises of main players Harshana Godamanna, Rajeev Rajapakse and Dineshkanthan Thangarajah.

Vimuktha De Alwis and Sharmal Dissananyake will be the new comers; these two have shown tremendous potential at last year’s Nationals tournament and junior international tournaments. They are currently undergoing training abroad preparing themselves to go through the selection process for the final team.  The final team will be announced closer to the tournament. The tournament is scheduled to be played early June.

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